The Elements Of Loss
by Seridano
Summary: When the past begins to encroach upon the present, two men who have nothing left to lose discover that they may have one last thing to hold onto.
1. Element One: Wind

**"The Elements of Loss"**

**Element One: Wind**

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Fading sunlight crept across stone, slowly retreating from the corridor as Remus stood, chagrined, watching the sun sink behind distant hills. How many times had they chased that horizon before James and Lily had died? How many moonlit gallivants had been attended when they'd failed to catch it? He'd been a fool back then, a willfully ignorant fool. In the end, he wondered how it could be that Severus had been the one to sum up their relationship best: "A pack of flea-bitten fools, playing at a game of follow the leader."

Remus had often wondered what would happen when they parted ways...willfully ignorant, but not entirely blinded to reality. He was too logical for that. The impossible had been Sirius's area of expertise, laying out grandiose plans for a future where the four of them (he had a tendency to forget about Peter, they all did at times)—himself, Remus, James, and Lily—all cozied up together, making names for themselves as famous Aurors. "Times are dark, Remus, my friend, and someone ought to stand up against that bastard," he would say, slinging an arm heavy with promise over Remus's shoulder... and so someone had.

Remus hadn't needed to see the bodies to imagine the struggle that had ensued. James and Lily were more than capable, but capability had played little part in what had occurred. Betrayed: the concept had clutched at him, the grief hanging heavy, suffocating him. He was unable (or more accurately, unwilling) to comprehend it those first few lonely nights, to believe that Sirius was capable of destroying all that they had held dear.

Taking a breath, Remus slowly unclenched his fists. The parchment was now crinkled along the edges where he'd clutched at it, and he made quick work of smoothing it. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." His voice barely above a whisper, full of reverence for four foolish boys and the clever witch who'd unwittingly taken them under her wing, he stared at the flowing script as it began to present itself from seeming nothingness.

_**'Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, purveyors of aids to magical mischief-makers, are proud to present the Marauder's Map.'**_

Remus's finger traced the ink as it appeared. It hadn't been Sirius, a small consolation in the end, though at the time he'd treated the news and the man himself as his everything. A bitter smile twisted worn features as he recalled shared embraces and desperate couplings thought to be the epitome of passion. The last of the Marauders—it had spoken of struggle and pride and survival against impossible odds when Sirius had said it; now it spoke of nothing but pervasive loneliness.

"It's just me now, Sirius."

A breeze stirs the map as if in reply, and Remus's answering smile tells a complex tale of faith deferred. What he hasn't told the others, those hopeful, steadfast souls that he's always known he won't be able to match (though he seems to fit amongst them well enough), is that he has absolutely no intention of retrieving it again. It's just the wind, he tell himself as he steps away from the courtyard and retreats back into the castle, parting ways with the few remaining rays of daylight. It's just the wind.


	2. Element Two: Fire

**"The Elements of Loss"**

**Element Two: Fire**

The number of things that a man might witness in his life time and revile, Severus has decided, numbered among the hundreds of thousands, each of them taking up residence within his mind, playing never-ending sequences with each nightly retreat into his chambers. Employing a particularly potent dreamless sleep draught had only done the trick of a handful of weeks before the potency had waned and the faces had returned, howling their outrage, expressing the depth of their anguish. Dark revels always fresh in his mind, how many personal hells had he collected over the years?

With a bitter quirk of lips that can't quite be called a smile, Severus raises his glass to the hearth and the flames leap to life, tendrils dancing, stretching ever upward as though meaning to lick at the glass before overtaking their prize, the taut white flesh stretched too thin over bleached bone. And her face there in the fire, tempting him, hair wild flames flickering as she cracks a smile, tosses her head and laughs, reaches a hand out to him. How he longs to reach out and take it, to give into the temptation, to let the flames consume him body and soul, to see her again.

"To memory," the words are part reverence, part bitterness, a toast to a faculty that has paid him little kindness of the years, even as his fingers itch to reach out and catch the embodiment of his few treasured dreams.

The firewhiskey burns pleasantly as it slides down his throat. Quickly downing the rest of the contents of the goblet, Severus closes his eyes and allows himself a singular moment of weakness, a vision of arms reaching out to enfold him, of a warm body pressed up beside him. He yearns to speak her name, and yet to do so would shatter the illusion, this he knows well.

Heart racing as one of the phantom hands alight upon his shoulder, his knee, his hand, Severus sinks back into his armchair and sighs. All illusion of pleasure, however, is shattered as his robes shift too close to the fire and the flames reach out eagerly to seize them.

Growling at the interruption, straightens and he jerks his legs back from the fire and muttering a quick spell to put out the flames. All the while his fingers tighten around the stem of the goblet. 'Dreams, illusions all, stop deluding yourself, you still have a promise to keep, a duty to attend to.' Green eyes stare at him when he closes his eyes in an attempt to reign himself back in, to steel himself against the coming days. Cursing, they snap open and Severus hurls the goblet into the fire, disgusted by his own weakness. 'You're pathetic, you always will be.'

Another upward quirking of lips, this time not bitter but displaying a raw tiredness, a tiredness bordering closely with defeat. 'Yes, but for the time being I still have a purpose to serve here, so long as the boy remains alive.' Green eyes flashing behind wire framed glasses, Potter was nearly as much of a nuisance as his father had been, but he had Lily's eyes, and her fire...

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((**Author's Note**: Not sure how happy I am with this, but figured it was long overdo for an update. My apologies for my Snape being a little rusty, I'll work on it over break and likely redo this chapter entirely. Feedback in regard to how you think the chapter presently flows (what you like and what you don't) would be much appreciated.))


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